Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

FLORA: “Mother Nature’s daily special”

Posted on July 28, 2011July 28, 2011 by Staff

By Ken Moore
Flora Columnist

Monterey Valley kisses the southern end of University Lake
And holds a fascinating primordial stirring of upthrusting rock
And most fecund ferned and fungied transitional forest.

First thing in the morning and last in the day
I walk with my camera into some astonishing display
Mother Nature’s daily special.

PHOTO BY BRIAN STOKES. Buttonweed is a frequently overlooked wildflower.
Some new hued face catches mine
Violet, yellow, white
And no matter how tiny it lays down there
On the bosom of Earth
It has my eye and my Heart.

That’s how I fall in love with wildflowers
Again and again and again.
They cast such a spell that simply gazing
In wonder brings purest tonic of Joy.

It takes no learning for the pleasure itself is a teacher
And then you simply begin to get acquainted.

Thanks to Brian Stokes for the above description of his daily walks in nearby woods. Brian is fortunate to be situated near the forest bordering Price Creek on both sides of Damascus Church Road at the southern end of University Lake.

Brian’s daily “closer looks” at the local flora called to my attention several common but seldom-noticed wildflowers of particular beauty.

The little white-flowered buttonweed, Diodia virginica, is common throughout the state in roadside ditches and even possibly scattered among the violets and dandelions, if you allow them, in your lawn. Diodia teres is very similar and also common, but you need not worry about the distinctions. Just enjoy that the distinctive four-petaled flowers may remind you of bluets or Quaker ladies you saw back in the cool spring, as well as the woodland evergreen groundcover, partridge berry. They all occupy places in the madder family, Rubiaceae, and you can share that with your friends! The common name, buttonweed, most likely refers to the little seedpods that resemble old-timey little round buttons.

Brian’s other special of the day is butterfly pea, Clitoria mariana, which while very common seems to bashfully keep its ternately (in threes) compound leafy vines hidden among woodland edges. It may attract your attention only when one of those vivid lavender-blue pea flowers greets the day. It is so beautiful that it simply needs no other description. In Brian’s words: “… simply gazing in wonder brings purest tonic of Joy.”

I mentioned the area along Price Creek many months ago (“Take an Avatar walk,” 2/4/10) after local musician Tim Stambaugh described it as one of his favorite nature haunts. This past winter, I joined a Heritage Hills resident in walking the path behind the community’s tennis court. The low flat terrain includes a cypress swamp, which is a magical-in-all-seasons place, but, for most folks, probably best explored in the winter season, when poison ivy is dormant. In dramatic contrast are the paths bordering Brian’s Monterey Valley area of giant boulders and undulating steeper terrain.

PHOTO BY BRIAN STOKES. A butterfly pea flower stops you mid-stride.

As I described in that earlier story about viewing our local forests as Avatar-like landscapes, both Brian and Tim appreciate their “closer look” walks that reward them with the naked, heart-stopping wonder of really seeing the living world. As Brian so beautifully expressed it: “Mother Nature’s daily special.”

Email Ken Moore at flora@carrborocitizen.com.

Find previous Ken Moore Citizen columns at The Annotated Flora.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme